You may have heard there was a knife attack in Japan yesterday, killing as many as 15 people and injuring as many as 45 others.

This is just one of several serious knife attacks around the world in the last several days.

Has the world gone mad? The attacks have come too quickly and in too many locations to really be able to keep up with what’s happened.

We’ve had attacks with knives, axes, guns, and a truck in the past two weeks.

This is not a statement about the merits or demerits of gun control; it’s a statement about the heart. After the Baton Rouge police killings last week, the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff said that the problem is not the guns but the human heart.”

The Bible makes this very clear. From the very beginning the problem has been the human heart. Cain killed his brother Abel because of the jealousy and envy within the heart of Cain.

The prophet Jeremiah described the human heart in detail: “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

In the time of Jesus, people wanted to make the issue something other than it really is. Jesus told us, “For from within, out of the heart of man come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you” (Mark 7:21-23).

If the issue is the human heart, the answer is a new heart and a new spirit, which only God can do.

The prophet Ezekiel showed the answer to our needs: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26). We all need to have our stubborn hearts replaced with a tender, responsive heart.

This comes when we open our hearts to allow God to work within us. He promises to make us new and to give us what we really need.

The world is in desperate need. To combat that need God sent His son to make us new and different and to bring us forgiveness and hope.

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